Comment: Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be

This year EDN Asia celebrates its 15th anniversary. As we look back at the last 15 years, we are proud to say that we have marched hand-in-hand with the Asian electronic design fraternity in the kind of partnership envisaged by the first Chief Editor Michael C. Markowitz, and serviced Asia’s design engineers, as conceived by the first publisher Jack Kompan. (See boxes.) When EDN Asia was launched, the global electronics market was worth $630 billion. Asia was third in market size, behind North America and Europe. As predicted by Kompan, Asia has emerged to be the largest market in an industry worth $1.3 trillion, and, more importantly, continues to be the fastest growing.

This anniversary issue aims at capturing the excitement of the last 15 years with a feeling of nostalgia. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. This graffito is said to be as old as the Roman Empire. It has been used so often that it has worn out into a cliché. Yet it is more relevant than ever. If in the past ages nostalgia was fond remembrances of things long past, today time changes so fast that nostalgia is fond remembrances of things just passed.

When EDN Asia began, CMOS-CPUs were running at 25MHz and designers were trying to reach the speed of 40MHz. “CPUs that run at 40 and 50MHz are forcing CMOS designers to amass ECL techniques to make circuits that function in this ethereal realm,” wrote John Gallant, Technical Editor, in the article titled CMOS circuits require new design approaches. CMOS circuits still require new design approaches, though our concept of “ethereal realm” is unrecognizably different from designers’ then. “Everything changes for CMOS design at 40MHz,” wrote Gallant. “High CPU speed necessitates clocks having fast rise and fall times.” Yes, once upon a time 40MHz was considered as “high CPU speed.” At the time of this writing, IBM claims to have launched Unix processor at 4.7GHz speed. By the time this article is published, this speed might become “slow.” Interestingly, CMOS has withstood the test of times and continues to be with us. Those were the times when multimedia was ripe for innovation. In the Special Report, Technical Editor J. D. Mosley wondered whether multimedia can be used to “interact with colleagues scattered around the world.” Can we believe this was just 15 years ago? How many centuries have passed through these 15 years? Amazing, astonishing, astounding centuries! Just a click of a mouse is all that is needed to interact with anybody stationed anywhere in the world.

Let us take a peek view at these centuries.

You can reach Kirtimaya Varma at kirti.varma@rbi-asia.com.



SEEING YOU AS PARTNER
Michael C. Markowitz, Chief Editor, addressed the readers and advertisers in his editorial Hello Partner, and wrote that his experience “suggests that success in a high-tech technology business, indeed in any business, takes more than just a good product. Success stems from a partnership between you and your customers. If your customers do well, so will you. Become a partner with each of your customers and your business will flourish because they will teach you to make your products better. At the same time, you can teach them how to use your products more productively. We at EDN Asia see each of you as our partners.”
EDN Asia, May 1992


ASIA WILL BE NO.1
In the publisher’s message Servicing Asia’s Engineers,
Jack Kompan, Publisher, wrote about Asia’s growing importance, “The outlook for Asia’s design activity is one of explosive growth. Whether it is an IC economy introducing its first chip designed entirely by its Singapore-based engineers, or a multi-national connector company boasting that 70 percent of their products sold in Asia are designed in Asia,” the message is loud and clear: gone are the days when Asia was nothing more than a source of cheap labor. . . . by the end of the decade, Asia will be number one – and still remain the fastest growing.”
EDN Asia, May 1992